Todd McFarlane to Unleash Spawn 2

Todd McFarlane, creator of the Spawn comic book, toy, movie and video game franchise, tells Animation Magazine Online that we can expect to see a lot more of the ultimate superhero from hell. The multi-faceted entrepreneur reveals that that he has more live-action and animated adventures in the works.

In addition to Namco’s Spawn video game, set to hit PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube this fall, McFarlane is trying to get a big screen sequel off the ground. The first Spawn featured lots of computer animated effects and grossed $54.8 million when New Line released it 1997. The film also helped move a lot of merchandise over at McFarlane Toys.

Ironically, McFarlane comments, “I just wrote a script for Spawn 2 and there are no toys in it. If they approve the script, I will make no toys. The toy people go, ‘why would you do that?’ Because that’s the story I needed to write and I wasn’t thinking about whether or not I could make toys, even though that’s what I do for a living.”

Currently, the project is with Sony Pictures, which has yet to commit to a production deal. McFarlane says he is also in the process of selling them another big movie and notes, “I’ll remind them that we have to get that Spawn thing moving. If not, there are a couple of other studios that have been saying, ‘If they don’t want it, we’ll take it.’”

Fans of HBO’s animated Spawn series will be happy to know that McFarlane and company are planning to get back into the animation business. “We just have to see whether we’re going to try and do what we’ve done before, which is episodic, or just do the 90-minute original movie for cable or TV and if they want to cut it up into episodes, fine.”

McFarlane suggests that this time around, things should go a lot smoother. He recalls his experience working on the first series, which lasted three seasons. “When I put myself in charge, I let everybody upstairs know that I’d never done it before, but I started asking a lot of questions like ‘why can’t we do it like this?’ I found there was resistance because everybody had done it a certain way for 20 years. But once we started cracking through some of the barriers, that’s when we started making some headway and getting into a groove. Too bad we didn’t have 13 seasons like The Simpsons.”

Read what McFarlane has to say about the upcoming Spawn video game in the Nov. issue of Animation Magazine.